Do I think Stuck is the player I thought he'd be 3 years ago... heck no. I do think he's a good player in the NBA, and while he has had the silver spoon shoved down his throat from day one (to mine and mosts horror), he has also had 3 years of horrible coaching and a GM with his hands tied. I didn't want us to give him the moon in a contract, but with the contract he was given I am ok with it. I think there is potential still there to be a better then average guard in this league.... and on a team with leaders he can follow. He can't shoot a lick from outside, but when paired with Knight who can shoot from outside, I think the combo can work.

Knight runs the team, but at times Stuckey can run the play... where he drives and kicks or goes to the hole. He can handle some point, he's just not a PG. A cheap mans Dumars, and maybe thats why he's so stuck on him... he see's himself all over again.

All Stuck has to do is demonstrate that he did more over the past seven months than count his soon to appear cash. If he was in the gym every day putting up a thousand or so jumpers, working on his form, making his game better, then he's worth the money. If his jumper is no better this year then his agent is a con artist and Joe is a fool. The weaknesses in his game were clear, and what he could do to alleviate them was also clear. Time will tell.

Without Stuckey right now we'd have a backcourt of Bynum, Knight, and Gordon.

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Um, ...no.
We would have signed somebody else besides Rod Stuckey. Perhaps a player with a more versitile skill set than putting his head down and plowing into the teeth of the defense. A shooting guard who can "shoot" perhaps?

The amount means basically nothing to anyone but Gores and Rodney considering we're locked into a couple of worse contracts until the deal is up.

As for joe bidding against himself, that is assuming quite a bit. Rodney was a restricted free agent and Joe made it publicly known that he wanted to keep Rodney around.

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The amount means something to me.
I happen to be a Pistons fan who wants to see his team spend their money as effectively as possible. Allocating resources to a dude who could help us in the frontcourt (ok ...NOT Kwame Brown) seems like a good idea to me. SG is the easiest position to fill in the NBA. No need to over-spend to get one.

...and yes, Joe most certainly DID bid against himself.
No amount of LSD would allow me to conjure up a hallucination where another team would have offered Rodney Stuckey $8 mil a year.

I hope that Rodney proves me wrong this year. I hope that Larry Frank lites a fire under Collider's butt and he manages to add things to his game that he has severely lacked up to this point in his career. I'm losing hope though. Rodney's been a rookie guard for way too long for me to continue to "hope".

Sources told ESPN.com that the sides have reached terms on a deal that, with bonuses, would pay out in excess of $43 million over five years to Afflalo, who was coveted by numerous top teams that generally presumed that the Nuggets would match any offer sheet to the 26-year-old.

(From Today's Freep)
...But Stuckey is getting used to Knight and he has no problem moving to shooting guard to get the talented rookie on the floor.
"He's a hard worker; a great athlete," Stuckey said of Knight. "I'm just out there trying to teach him as much as I can.

"Right now, my legs are killing me," he joked. "When my legs are back, I'll get up and down the court more, (and get) more elevation on my shot."

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Glad to know he spent his downtime working hard and trying to get better.

"The point guard was pass first, pass second, pass third, defend your position and was probably a suspect shooter," Frank said. "Maybe that's why he passed the ball, because he couldn't shoot."

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Now he isn't talking about Stuckey, but maybe this is why Joe thought Stuckey should be a point. If Stuckey could of figured out the first three parts of being a traditional point guard maybe he could of been a traditional point.

Glad to know he spent his downtime working hard and trying to get better.

Now he isn't talking about Stuckey, but maybe this is why Joe thought Stuckey should be a point. If Stuckey could of figured out the first three parts of being a traditional point guard maybe he could of been a traditional point.

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Oh for crying out loud.

Stuckey to Brandon Knight: "No, no, no. You need to keep your head down and drive. Let's try it again..."

Um, ...no.
We would have signed somebody else besides Rod Stuckey. Perhaps a player with a more versitile skill set than putting his head down and plowing into the teeth of the defense. A shooting guard who can "shoot" perhaps?

...and yes, Joe most certainly DID bid against himself.
No amount of LSD would allow me to conjure up a hallucination where another team would have offered Rodney Stuckey $8 mil a year.
I hope that Rodney proves me wrong this year. I hope that Larry Frank lites a fire under Collider's butt and he manages to add things to his game that he has severely lacked up to this point in his career. I'm losing hope though. Rodney's been a rookie guard for way too long for me to continue to "hope".

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okay i'll play along - name some SG options we could have gotten instead. you said SG is the easiest position to fill in the NBA...i don't think any position is easy to fill. i might agree if you think it's the least important position to fill, but quality SGs are not as common as most people believe.

and i still believe rodney would have gotten at least $7 million offered for 4+ years from another team if he was an unrestricted free agent.

The problem, however, is that Stuckey's title as "combo guard" is more suggestive of his apositional nature, not an ability to effectively produce at either guard position. When playing at the 2, Stuckey loses the size advantage he has over point guards and his defense suffers dramatically. Without the point-style control of the ball, Stuckey's offensive talents are also curbed, given his preference for isolation style play.
...
Here's an eye-opener: Stuckey's 28.9% three-point shooting in 2010-11 was the 60th best amongst shooting guards. There were 59 shooting guards in the league who were more effective than Rodney at shooting three pointers, and shooting just happens to be so important that it's in the actual job title he'll be holding for much of 2011-12.

Here's the thing fans should come to grips with before the season starts: Rodney Stuckey is not the answer at shooting guard. His title as a "combo guard" relates to his inability to fit into a modern NBA position, it does not suggest an ability to adequately produce at multiple positions. His size advantage is lost at the two, and without the ball in his hand, he's an offensive liability as well. The idea that Stuckey might work at shooting guard has been passed around by fans for years now, but sadly, it just isn't reflected in this player's style or body of work.

I also won't agree with the sentiment that Stuckey's game improved steadily. There was a big jump in his numbers from his rookie season to his second rookie season, but that has more to do with Billups' departure than anything else. Other than that, his improvement has been limited to blips on relatively flat stat lines:

His other sophisticated stats (win shares, PER etc) might have improved, but that's more because the team around him got progressively worse IMO. The reality is he is exactly the same player he was 3 years ago. Monroe has shown more improvement in the second half of the season last year than Stuckey did in 3 years.

If this guy is unwilling to learn, or put the effort in to learn, then he is a lazy complacent player and he won't ever get better.

If he is willing to learn and is working hard, then whatever he's doing, or whoever he has as a trainer, isn't working and he is too ignorant to realize that fact and therefore he won't ever get better.

Stuckey is not a bad player; there are far worse players in the NBA. But he has peaked IMO. This is his ceiling. Whether it is a natural or self-imposed limit is irrelevant.

I also won't agree with the sentiment that Stuckey's game improved steadily. There was a big jump in his numbers from his rookie season to his second rookie season, but that has more to do with Billups' departure than anything else. Other than that, his improvement has been limited to blips on relatively flat stat lines:

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I will agree that the improvement has been marginal. Here are his stats per 36 min:

Stuckey's only shot at being a truly special player is at PG where he can use his size as an advantage.
Previously, when he's played PG, he's been guarded by another PG. He played along side Rip who has good height for a SG. When Stuck played the Off-Guard, McGrady was running the point and Stuck benefited by being checked by the opposing PG.

With the current crop of Piston Guards, Rodney will almost always be checked by the oposition's big guard as Gordon, Bynum and B-K will be defended by the other team's PG.

No more days of having a size advantage for the Collider with Rip and Tracy out of the picture.

Stuckey's only shot at being a truly special player is at PG where he can use his size as an advantage.
Previously, when he's played PG, he's been guarded by another PG. He played along side Rip who has good height for a SG. When Stuck played the Off-Guard, McGrady was running the point and Stuck benefited by being checked by the opposing PG.

With the current crop of Piston Guards, Rodney will almost always be checked by the oposition's big guard as Gordon, Bynum and B-K will be defended by the other team's PG.

No more days of having a size advantage for the Collider with Rip and Tracy out of the picture.

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We will see how it works out. Fact is, we don't know yet, and it's one of the reasons I will be tuning in this year.

I do seem to remember Rodney having some decent games alongside Chucky Atkins a couple years back though.